


The Nightmare

by nikiatnite



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Nightmares, PTSD, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 07:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15577254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikiatnite/pseuds/nikiatnite
Summary: With Harry and the kids gone, Ginny is left alone with her memories and fears from the war, still haunted by everything she experienced.





	The Nightmare

Ginny yawned and pawed at her hair in the reflective walls of the lift. It was no use. Ginger strands poked out around her in a halo of orange. She tried to refrain from rubbing at her itchy eyes to keep them from getting redder and the circles under them darker. She tried for a winning smile. She just looked manic.

When the doors on the lift opened at floor three (editor-in-chief for Witch Weekly), Ginny stepped out into the corridor where—miraculously—her secretary Gloria had not yet appeared at her desk. Ginny trudged across the plush lavender carpet in her trainers. (She had a pair of heels hidden in her desk that she donned for important meetings.) She entered her office, not even glancing at the framed articles on the walls or the Quidditch trophies in the case next to her desk. 

She dropped her exhausted corpse of a body into the plush chair behind her desk and took a look at the pile of letters and articles in her tray. On top was her schedule, exactly as she always told Gloria to leave it before she left for the night. Ginny grabbed the sheaf of parchment and saw that she had two meetings and one Floo call to make that morning. She sighed and laid her forehead against her desk for a moment, hoping the cool wood would calm her frazzled nerves and aching neck. 

Ginny missed Harry and the kids. Albus, James, and Lily were off at Hogwarts having adventures and supposedly learning a thing or two. Harry was there too supposedly teaching them. Ever since he had accepted the position as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, he had left her for over half the year to shape young minds. Ginny knew he was happy, but she sometimes couldn’t help feeling lonely. At first she’d had the kids, but they had all gone off one at a time. Finally Lily had left and Ginny was spending her first year in the house alone. 

She thought of the days when they were all together, a happy family. She wasn’t aware when her memories became dreams. She was baking Harry’s birthday cake with help from the kids. James kept sneaking bites of batter when he thought she wasn’t looking, and Lily, bored with the minutiae of baking, was reading one of James’s school books. Only Albus was really helping, pouring in sugar for the icing as Ginny stirred. 

Suddenly, a bit of frosting flew out of the bowl and landed on Albus’s check. Ginny laughed softly as she reached out to wipe it off, but halfway there her hand froze. The white icing had turned blood red and was dripping down Albus’s face. His face froze in a smile and his eyes went blank as he crumpled to the floor. Ginny dropped the bowl of icing, letting it shatter on the ground as she fell to her knees next to her son. But when she turned him over, his hair had turned ginger and freckles had sprouted across his nose and cheeks. She was looking into the unseeing eyes of her brother Fred, his last joke ringing in her ears. She turned to James and Lily, tears burning her eyes, but they weren’t there. All that was left on the floor where they had been sitting was a bloody severed ear. 

Ginny turned back to the boy in her arms, but she could no longer see him. Bright lights began flashing all about her as she stared at her empty arms. When she looked up, shadowy figures were blasting away at each other, destroying her kitchen. Green, red, purple, and gold sparks lit up the world around her until it was so brilliant that she had to cover her eyes. She sobbed into her hands and screamed out for her children. 

In the dark she heard Harry’s voice. 

“I have to go Ginny. He has to be stopped. And it has to be me.”

“No!” she cried out. “I need you here! They’re all gone. Please come back to me. I need you.”

“He can’t hear you,” said the voice, but it was no longer Harry’s. It was high and cold. “He’s gone. He could never love you. You’re nothing. Nothing compared to him and nothing compared to me.”

Ginny looked up. “Tom?” she whispered. Handsome Tom Riddle smiled at her from across the Chamber of Secrets. When he held out his hand, she reached to take it, but he gestured across the cavern, his eyes turning scarlet. 

“See what we’ve done together, Ginny?”

She looked to where he was pointing and felt her arms go numb, dropping back to her sides. Hanging from the wall sconces, just as Mrs. Norris had all those years ago, were her family. Harry, Albus, James, Lily, Hermione, her parents, her brothers. But unlike Mrs. Norris they were not petrified. They hung limp and lifeless. On the wall, written in blood, were the words The Dark Lord rises again. Ginny looked down at her shaking hands, stained with dark red liquid. 

“No!” she screamed. “NO. NO!”

She sat up in her chair, nearly smashing Gloria’s nose in with the back of her head. Her face was wet with tears, and her clammy hands were shaking, just as they had been in her nightmare. However, they were perfectly clean of blood. As her rapid breathing slowed, she began to take in her environment. She recognized her office and realized that her family was alive and well. Harry and her children were at Hogwarts. Her parents were at the Burrow. Her brothers and Hermione were all at work. Well, all except Fred. She wiped her tears on the back of her shirtsleeve and tried to take a few deep breaths. 

Ginny turned to look at Gloria, standing over her shoulder. Gloria was looking at her as if she were going to jump up and start hexing everything in sight.   
“Mrs. Potter?” she said with trepidation. “Is everything alright?”

Ginny plastered on her highest-wattage business smile. “I’m fine Gloria. Just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I must’ve dozed off at my desk.” 

She glanced at the clock on her wall, momentarily confused by the hands with faces on them. Then she shook her head and glanced at the other clock on the other wall. She had only been out for a half hour. Hopefully she could still get herself together in enough time for that early morning Floo call. 

“Thank you for waking me, Gloria. Could you memo the kitchens and tell them to send up a cup of tea and some toast with marmalade? I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning and I have a Floo in a half hour.”

Gloria looked at her warily. “Of course, Mrs. Potter. I’ll have that right up.” She walked back through the doors to her desk, already waving her wand to fold up a little paper airplane. 

Ginny conjured a mirror with her wand and patted some of the puffiness out of her eyes. There was nothing that could be done for the hair, so she pulled out a rubber band and swept it into a loose ponytail. It wasn’t going to land her on the magazine’s style page, but it would be good enough for the rest of the day. 

After confirming that she looked sufficiently presentable, Ginny vanished the mirror and turned her attention to the pile of work on her desk. It was going to be a long day and an even longer night in that empty house with nothing but her nightmares to comfort her.

**Author's Note:**

> I was super intrigued by the way Ginny would deal with being alone after everyone went off to Hogwarts (yes Harry is a teacher fite me rowling). This was originally posted on my tumblr nikiatnite.


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